TonyR
I find your experience interesting and to some extent reassuring. When the early discussions took place about reducing police attendance at traffic accidents AKA advising more people who ring to report accidents that they need only exchange details, experienced traffic police queried what would happen in cases where false details were given. It's worth mentioning that in the days when the police did attend and investigate more accidents, anybody who initially decided only to exchange details but then found they had been stiffed was likely to get little sympathy if they later reported the accident to try to get the other party's details. Assurances were made that people who exchanged details would not be let down in these circumstances. The subsequent developments are all after my time, but I remember, perhaps a decade ago, when police forces' websites carried details of which collisions would be attended, some at least included an assurance along those lines.
After a crash, especially where there's no injury, IME a lot of people just want to reinstate their car at no cost to their no claims bonus. Prosecution is not on their agenda and is even less desirable to them when the possibility of being called to give evidence emerges. Injury accidents - and that's most crashes between a motor vehicle and a cyclist - are a different matter, or they should be. Unfortunately, under the guise of concentrating on serious crashes, there seems to have been a substantial loss of official interest in "minor injury" accidents. It's been suggested that the evidence for this includes a lot of hospital-visit injuries to vulnerable road users not appearing in the police stats. It's my impression and nothing more that KSI - killed or seriously injured is often interpreted as "any possibility of their being a Coroner's inquest." My wife was recently watching an episode of a telly documentary called
Traffic Cops or something similar. (It features our local police force and our neighbours' twin sons have "starred" in it.) One bit that I caught included the scene of a bad smash. The police at the scene received info from the paramedics that the casualty was failing and an officer explained the effect of an inquest.
The point I'm trying to make is that this apparent downgrading of injury collisions is detrimental to the interests of vulnerable road users.
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Edit to add:
I've just found this which I think is relevant to my post at the bottom of the previous page.
http://www.leedscyclingcampaign.co.uk/?q=node/653It's an account of a meeting arranged by the West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner with cyclists unhappy about the police response to collisions etc. I think it's very important to note that the PCC attended in person, rather than just writing some waffle. It needs lots more meetings like this up and down the land. The PCC's need to be waking up in the night worrying about meeting more complaining cyclists.
One very regrettable thing - if I've understood this correctly - is that the chief inspector who was in charge of road policing has been replaced by an inspector. In an organisation like the police, the rank of the person in charge of a department is really significant. Until about twenty years ago, there was a traffic inspector in every division in West Yorkshire and the motorway unit had five, with a chief inspector in charge. This isn't about the quality of the individuals concerned. Mark Bownass who is mentioned in that link is one of my neighbours and a jolly fine chap he is too. In the clamour for resources, a uniform chief inspector - now apparently replaced by an inspector - will not get a look in as compared with all the detective chief superintendents investigating "real crime."